Estimating disease burden attributable to household air pollution: new methods within the Global Burden of Disease Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Despite a substantial reduction in the use of solid fuels worldwide, exposure to household air pollution (HAP) from use of these fuels for cooking remains a leading risk factor for global disease burden. Among environmental risk factors, the contribution of HAP to disease burden is second only to ambient particulate matter pollution. We present updates to our modeling methodology as well as our latest findings on attributable burden estimates. Methods We estimated HAP-attributable burden for cataract, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischaemic heart disease, lower respiratory infections, lung cancer, neonatal disorders, stroke, and type 2 diabetes for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019. We used spatio-temporal Gaussian Process Regression to model data from observational surveys and censuses reporting primary cooking fuel to estimate the proportion of individuals using a specific solid-fuel type (wood, coal/charcoal, agricultural residues, or dung) by location. We converted the fuel exposure estimates to year, location, and sex/age-specific PM 2·5 exposures with a regression mapping function using household air pollution measurements. Using a Bayesian meta-regression tool, we estimated relative risk as a function of PM 2·5 exposure for each disease based upon a systematic review of the epidemiological literature on indoor and ambient air pollution. We then combined our exposure estimates and relative risks to estimate population attributable fractions and attributable burden for each cause. Findings In 2019, 91·5 million global disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) (95% uncertainty interval 67·0–119) were attributable to HAP, a decline of more than 50% from 1990. We estimated 2·31 million (1·63–3·12) global deaths were attributable to HAP and accounted for over 4% of all deaths in 2019. HAP-attributable burden remains highest in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia, with 3770·3 (2876·4–4720·2) and 2068·0 (1412·5–2799·7) age-standardised DALYs per 100 000 population, respectively. Interpretation Although the disease burden attributable to HAP decreased considerably between 1990 and 2019, it remains a significant risk factor. Our internally consistent methodology and comprehensive approach to estimation of HAP-attributable burden provides a robust resource for global health interventions. Efforts to transition to cleaner household energy sources should be accelerated. Funding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.061 | 0.141 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.007 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.008 | 0.011 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".